1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates to computer-processes for using ISP-collected behavioral data to ascertain preferences of Internet users. In addition, this disclosure relates to computer processes for associating particular IP addresses with particular user categories or segments including, but not limited to, behavioral segments.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an increasingly digital world, the technical challenge of providing the right content to the right people at the right time is an important goal throughout media, both for advertisers and other types of content providers. This goal is becoming increasingly difficult as expansion of digital media is providing greater consumer choice and more diffuse viewership. Digital media is also providing the ability to directly target individuals or households. The ability to use geographic data, demographic data, and behavioral data to target those people has been shown to improve results, such as increased viewing, increased readership, and increased advertising responses. The use of this information creates a dichotomy as consumers are generally interested in an engaging experience that is highly relevant to their desires, but they are also concerned about the privacy of their information and wish to control what parties have access to their personally identifiable information.
Currently, online targeting is executed in a few ways. Marketing on web sites that are likely to draw target audiences is a basic way to attempt to make advertising more effective. However, this requires significant research into trends in potential customers' interests and web browsing habits. Despite these expenses, advertisement placement selections are still likely to be both under- and over-inclusive, meaning that both interested targets would not see the advertisement and uninterested non-targets would see the advertisement. A few general techniques have developed that can allow content providers, including advertisers, to provide more targeted information. One is self-reported data. Through a web site registration process, survey, or the like, a user may provide information that can be used to provide targeted content to users. However, this technique has a number of limitations. Internet users are often reluctant to explicitly supply the types of information that are useful for effective content targeting. In addition, the information supplied can typically only be used to personalize the user's experience on the particular site that collected the information, and possibly a small number of affiliated sites.
To reduce the need for users to register and log in, many web sites use browser cookies to identify users. Cookies, however, can get deleted from a user's computer, resulting in an inability to associate the user with stored information about that user. Also, when a user uses multiple computing devices or software browsers to access a given web site, the web site system may treat each of those entities as separate users.
Advertisers are willing to pay more for behaviorally targeted media, because response rates are demonstrably better. In fact, recent studies show that advertisements targeted based on the users' past behavior yields superior results when compared to advertisements that are merely contextually placed. (Examples of contextual placement include selecting an ad based on the content of the page being viewed, or based on a current search query submitted by the user). Most, if not all, digital advertising inventory may soon be sold with a behavioral component.
As Internet technology has progressed and addressable media has developed, the information management role of the Internet Service Provider (ISPs) has expanded substantially. As the world moves more media to IP based delivery, the ISPs are in the unique position to observe numerous interest-evidencing activities of their subscribers. ISPs, however, commonly lack the resources to effectively mine the behavioral data to which they have access. Additionally, privacy laws and subscribers' own privacy interests often limit the ability of ISPs to share the collected behavioral data with other entities.